Falling
by Abel Quartz
Summary: Mindful Education, alternate ending. WARNING: This story features themes of suicide, depression, gore and graphic descriptions of violence, death, loss, emotional distance, substance abuse, and blood. Please use your best judgement.
1. Falling

" _You have to. You have to be honest about how bad it feels so you can move on. That's how it was for me."_

Steven opened his eyes. Connie's face through the tears was so plaintive, so honest. What did she want? The hurt and the pain he had caused was still coursing through his skull. He remembered everything he had done. He remembered everything he had said.

This destiny before him was full of so much strife, and it was – it came from –

"Steven!"

"I can't."

The ground rushed towards them, still so far but far too close.

"No! You have to, Steven, you have to so that –"

Steven released his fingers. His face was devoid of hope. Connie stopped and stared, the wind turning numb in her ears as she watched Steven relax everything in his body. It was wrong, so wrong, so uncomfortable to see him like this, but she couldn't quite place it. And then it struck her – this was the first time she had truly seen Steven give up.

"I…I did mean to hurt them," he said. "I meant to hurt them because it was the only real way. Nobody has to change. Sometimes, they can't change. We're never truly different people, no matter what we see, no matter how much we grow."

Connie reached for his face. Steven gripped her wrists, eyes closed. She cried out in surprise, feeling the bones grind under the strength of his hands.

"I couldn't see it. But I can now. As long as I live, others will die – because of me. Mom made me because she wanted me to experience the world. But what kind of world will it be as long as I'm here? I can't live with the humans, and the more I live with the gems, the more I turn into her. And we don't know a thing about Rose Quartz! She kept secrets, she killed, she lied to people, and even the Gems didn't know!

"I'm turning into her whether I like it or not. And I don't want to end up like her. I don't want to be her. I want to be Steven. This is the last time that I…"

The jagged peaks of the mountain were coming into focus now. Connie couldn't look, not for as long as Steven was here in front of her. Their tears joined in pearls above their heads, flying back up into the atmosphere.

Steven's hands broke from hers suddenly, and his fingers curled as a pink bubble formed around Connie. It would be enough to break her fall if he pushed his powers into it, yes, enough to make it float. A layer of clouds broke as they fell through. Steven pushed off of the bubble's surface and fell backwards into the mist, closing his eyes as he drifted away, still falling, with the bubble still floating, far away enough not to hear Connie's screams.

There it was. As the bubble disappeared as a pink dot in the sky, he reached for it one last time, and he wished it could have been something better. It could have been a life without violence, a life without the Gems. Just him, and his father, and perhaps a scar in his stomach where a pink stone once sat. He touched his belly and felt that familiar, hideous warmth.

"No more."

Connie pressed her hands against the side of the bubble and wailed as she saw the speck below her hit the earth. A cloud of pink exploded from its impact. The sound shocked her into silence, and then she was left alone, staring at the cloud as she drifted down to earth.

* * *

"He doesn't want to go."

The town was there, almost everyone who had ever seen or known Steven, everyone now filing out of the hillside memorial grounds. There were stragglers, but soon it was only the two of them staring at the granite tombstone. The Crystal Gems couldn't bear to stay. Greg put a hand on Connie's shoulder, heavy like it had never been in his life.

There had been no body. There hadn't even been a gem. All there had been was the faint smell of rose blossoms in the meadow and a scorched crater in the dirt.

"C'mon, buddy, you need to come with us," Greg said.

Lion growled begrudgingly, but didn't move an inch. Connie reeled and hugged Greg suddenly, burying her face in his suit jacket. It was almost too warm for suits, but the clouds overhead covered the city, more silent observers to the funeral.

"He's gone, Lion." Greg choked on his words. He didn't even try to wipe the tearstains on the suit's lapels. "Lion, please, just come with us, please…"

The beast curled over the plot of dirt and grunted once again. Connie couldn't stop, couldn't move. She was frozen against Steven's father, unable to get past the hurt of the reality before them. They had to survive now, for him. They had to. What else could be done? There was the Steven they knew before who would have understood. He would have done the same thing.

So much to do, gone. Greg didn't want to go back to the van. There was a crown, a cape, a photograph and a whole booklet of them – and baby teeth, and his first guitar, and extra clean shirts and underwear and socks, and drawings from when he was just barely an adolescent –

He understood. He cried silently over Connie's sobs, embracing her as he turned both of them away from the plot. Lion watched them, eyes slit and breath steady. There was no emotion on his face, as unreadable as ever, but there was knowing. He huffed again, closing his eyes as the sunlight warmed his mane.

There was the meadow by the hill where Steven was remembered. There was another unseen meadow behind the fur of Lion's mane.

The grass was endless and pink, just like his fur. The sky was always clear and pleasant, betraying the illusion of distant stars.

There was an island with a tree. There were things there, Things that Rose Quartz had saved from her life before, things she knew Steven would one day find.

In a tiny bubble, near the branching heart, a new stone sat, pink and warm. Five sides, five angles, one circle in its embedded base – it waited.

And it slept.


	2. Falling II: Falling Down

The beach was empty this early in the morning. Over the gentle waves, Connie could hear the hum of neon and the highway, the calling of birds, trash flying past the wooden planks – She shut it out. Her hands sank into the cold sand. Her jeans were damp from the condensation. Her hair was loose and dry, blown back from the sea breeze.

Amethyst stood beside her, arms crossed over her chest. She raised her thumb to her gem and wiped the condensation off of its surface. In a tentative motion, the Gem sat down, cross legged, next to the girl.

It had been one week. The house lights were still dark. The energy of the town was nervous, compromised. Nobody was used to it yet.

"Amethyst?"

She turned with surprise at Connie's voice. This was not the first time that she had joined Connie on the beach, but this was the first time that Connie had initiated conversation. Her face was stony and hallowed.

"Yeh?"

"Gems die, right? That's what happens when you get shattered."

That made Amethyst shudder, and she leaned onto the sand softly.

"Jeez. It's not like that, not really. Shattering is, like…when you split into parts of yourself, and you aren't yourself any more. You can't really reform, not like we can when we get hurt. Then you get stuff like the shard mutants."

"So it's not the end."

Amethyst shook her head. "No. But you lose yourself, y'know? You aren't anything, so you jus' become nothing."

Connie gave her a look. Unreadable. Illegible. It wasn't like her.

"That's – like, I think that's it. I dunno." Amethyst turned back to the ocean.

But then it broke, this façade, the walls that Connie was holding back. She was tired when she slept, but she was just as tired as she woke, tired from holding this all in, tired from the unanswered questions and the overwhelming sympathy with no understanding behind it. It swarmed around her, drowning her. She sobbed as she came up for air.

The gem was intact, but its location was unknown. Amethyst looked at the young girl with her fingers dug into the earth and her teeth bared in agony, tears coming down her face in silent trails, as silent as the pleas that escaped her throat, please, no, infinite denial and rage. The Gem cried silently, her eyes closed as she listened to the rasps coming up from Connie's soul.

It died down in the same gradient as it had begun, but this time, the tears had moistened her cheeks, shining in the shadow of the early morning sun behind the veil of clouds that came with the late summer. Autumn was upon them. Everything was dying now.

She stopped to breathe. Connie inhaled the salt, flaying her raw throat and red eyes. The pain of her body was enough to make her pause, licking her lips as Amethyst could only watch.

"C'mon," she murmured, offering Amethyst a hand.

They stood together. They started down the beach, finger to finger, warrior to warrior, outcast to outcast. For the first time in uncountable hours, there was catharsis.

"I don't know why," Connie said, leaning her head on Amethyst's shoulder. "I really don't know why. If he was that hurt, he should have talked to me, said something."

"Everyone kept secrets," Amethyst mused. "Rose Quartz certainly did."

Connie shuddered. "He hated her."

"What? No, he –"

"What she was, what she didn't tell anyone. I've heard all the stories, and we know what Rose was like. Did she keep secrets because she wanted to keep people safe? Or because they couldn't reconcile that, what she did and what she said?"

Amethyst huffed and turned to the water. "She was a fighter. She hurt people. You've done it."

Connie turned to glare at the Gem, but she didn't let go of her hand.

"Once, it was an accident – and the rest was fighting against evil, against people who wanted to hurt us! I never hurt anyone because I wanted to hurt them!"

"None of us did!" She paused. "None of us do."

They stopped, but their feet carried forwards. They had to move forwards. The peace flowed over them whether they liked it or not.

"I'm sorry," Amethyst mumbled.

"Me too."

Then, Connie stopped, and the two turned to each other at the same time. Connie reached up and held Amethyst's face, brushing the lavender hair from her eyes. The Gem paused, unsure, but she stayed for Connie's sake.

"Do Gems ever want to die?"

If she had a stomach, it would have turned.

"Yeah. Yeah, when it's for a reason. When they're dying for something, when they've got something to die for. But they don't want to just for…existing. Existence isn't a choice! It's just what there is!"

"Steven never had a choice," Connie said. "He was raised to be a Gem, but Rose Quartz said that he was a human being. He was forced to be like her, but his life was about making choices! Did we just…lie to him? About everything?"

"No! No, we just – Steven didn't tell us how much it was hurting him. I-I would have listened, we should have… He should've told us…"

She choked and tapered off. They pressed their foreheads together, in a strained kind of hug, hands on wrists on faces on shoulders. Both of them were crying again, silently, so tired of feeling tired.

"Connie?"

"Amethyst?"

"Do you need help? You…you hurt at all?"

Connie opened her eyes, and for the first time since that day, Amethyst saw the faintest hint of a smile. No, of relief.

"Help?" she whispered.

Amethyst cracked a shaky grin.

"You're human, y'know? Humans, they need this kinda thing. We…all do."

"I'm not like that."

Connie let go, but Amethyst held on. Her thick fingers gripped the young girl's shoulders; just enough to show that she was there.

"I don't know why, but even though… Amethyst, I'm hurt, you know I'm hurt. I'm lost, but I still want to carry on! I can't give up, I can't, I just… I don't know where to go without Steven, but I won't die for him now. He did this because he wanted me to live! I can't give up now. Because – because if I did, then it would be like he hurt me. And what would that mean? What did he…what did he die for? I know, it's selfish, it's stupid –"

"No." Amethyst wiped her eyes with her knuckles. "No, you're right. Ain't that just like him? Makes us feel like it's dumb, but it's right, isn't it."

"Isn't it?"

They could almost have laughed. All they could do was hug each other and feel each other, feel the wind in their hair, black and pale purple mixed in strands human and inhuman, two souls woven together by a soul who could no longer feel their love.

* * *

One month before, the world had been pink.

Where was he? He had felt himself fall asleep, and he had felt the pillow against his head, and the gentle tousling of his hair against the sheets as his body gurgled and settled. But now, the world was pink. And it wasn't his world.

He knew the exact year and the exact time and, at the same time, he had no idea where he was. It felt like he was floating off the ground, staring out over the pink ocean.

She stood in front of them – him, no, he was Steven, this was his dream –

"It's beautiful," Bismuth breathed. "Rose, this is incredible, where are we?"

"We're somewhere special," Steven said.

This wasn't his voice. Hands that were not his clasped each other and he could feel each nervous finger.

"I don't understand."

Bismuth's rainbow hair danced as she turned her head, her smile bringing Steven back to a memory that was no longer there. This was wrong. Where was it?

"You will."

Bismuth's smile faded. Steven felt a fear he did not understand, a vindication he couldn't justify, an excitement with no joy.

His shoulders moved and his arm thrust forward and it was not his.

Bismuth's pupils shrank as the sword plunged through her flesh. Steven wanted to scream. He could only sigh. She was fascinated. He was f- NO.

NO, he screamed as human blood came out from Bismuth's chest. It was red, it was terrible, it was all over the white dress that snapped him back to the bed.

He shot out of bed, jumping back, hard enough to hit his head on the wall. Sweat covered him, soaked into his pajamas. The night was almost over, but the sun was not yet up. The light was pale gold and salmon through the window. Everything hurt, all his muscles, his brain, the back of his head.

That was not a memory, but it was so vivid, so warm in his mind, and it… It was gone. It was never gone, but it was forgotten. It didn't explain the warmth that seemed to glow from his gem as he rested his hand on it. His hands were shaking. Steven closed his eyes. First, his hand moved to his cheeks, and he felt the tear stains. Then, his hand moved below to the mattress underneath.

His face burned as he got out of bed, pulling the sheets off to the side. Years of Steven's past burned fresh in his mind as he undressed, flames curling away the dream that had infected his mind, like the smell that just now seeped into his nostrils. A shower. A bath. Then this would all be over.


	3. Falling III: Falling Away

They rested together in Pearl's room. It was the calmest out of all the rooms in the Temple, now that the cascades had stopped. Where torrents had once fallen through and swirled into the ground, still water dripped and broke the pools around them.

Garnet sat on the surface of the aqueous plateau, her legs crossed, her visor dissipated into the aether. She could not meditate, as Pearl often did, not any more.

"This isn't right," she murmured.

Pearl looked up and opened her eyes. She was on her knees, her hands folded in her lap. Neither of them had rested for days, but it seemed to have taken its toll on Pearl the hardest. Her hair was disheveled, the frills faltering and frayed.

"No," Pearl whispered. "No, it's not."

Garnet shook her head.

"You don't understand. I didn't see this. I couldn't see this at all."

Pearl watched as her friend rose, lifting her right hand, tracing her eyes over the four points of the stone embedded there. She clenched her hand, but not in anger. It was something that Pearl had not seen in what felt like forever. It was confusion.

"It was…like when Ruby first met Sapphire?" Pearl asked.

"Yes. But it shouldn't have happened."

Pearl sighed. They had been over this conversation before, more than she would have liked. Of course, it would have been better to never have had to go over it at all.

"Why didn't he show us anything?" Garnet continued, before Pearl could speak. "I could feel his pain before it happened, stop it before it hurt him, all his life. Why not this?"

She wasn't shouting, but the control was waning. Pearl took a step back.

"There's so much that we can never…that he didn't…"

Garnet raised her hands to her eyes. She was a silent crier, especially in these times. They ran down her face and into the pool below them. There was nothing in the air but that sound of water, its presence ebbing in their minds together, broken momentarily by a soft sob. Garnet wiped her face.

It had been less than a month, and the summer outside Beach City was fading to fall. The Temple was chillier, frosted in the thinner parts of the water and the windowsills. Without any humans in the house, there was no real need for heat or fire. There were no blankets. There were no sleeping bags, or stuffed animals, or soup to be heated, or hot cocoa to be stirred. Stone and shivers dominated no man's house.

Garnet slid off onto the surface of the lower pool, stepping towards the door. She had had enough of this. It wasn't helping and it wasn't giving her answers.

"There is so much we can never know."

She turned as Pearl leapt down beside her. Her feet did not wobble as she touched the surface, stepping towards Garnet, one hand extended.

"I don't like it either. But we all learn about secrets after they happen," Pearl said. "Rose taught me that, and now – now, Steven taught us all. His secrets, they hurt him so much…he didn't want to pass that to us. Steven wanted what was best for us."

"You can't possibly defend –"

"No, I'm not! What he did was wrong! It was wrong for him, and it was wrong for you, and me, and Amethyst, and – and her…"

They knew. There was a moment where they both stopped dead in their words, and the only thing that the two Gems could do was move towards each other in remembrance.

Garnet had held Connie back that day. The girl had screamed as she touched down, clawing at the warrior's body with chipped and chewed nails, pushing against the Gem with her legs, calling his name to the sky. Pearl had rushed in and out of the pink mist, her spear cutting through the crater's cloud. She had called for Steven, but she bit her tongue as Connie overpowered every thought in her mind with her wailing.

They tried not to think about her, but there were always echoes, in the cave and in their hearts, echoes that could never be silenced.

"Oh, Connie, oh no," Pearl whimpered. She gripped Garnet, hugging her and crying, repeating, repeating her name underneath her breath in hoarse sobs.

To be apart had pained Garnet like nothing else. To be human, and to die, that was so far removed that Garnet could not even imagine it. Nothing in her mind came close – not shattering, not bubbling, nothing. To die as a human was the worst fate she could see. In the war, humans had been born and humans had died, and it was never any more wonderful a beginning, and never any more horrific an end.

"Perhaps I could have never seen it."

Garnet shook her head, closing her eyes as she embraced Pearl.

"No, I couldn't have. Had I seen that possibility, then I still would have not known what path to take. Do we go about each day wondering when we are going to die? Or can we only see as far as we can live? We cannot die, Pearl. Rose could not die. She could only become him. Steven… He was so much a part of her that perhaps, perhaps I was tricked. Perhaps we all believed that he could live forever like us. To die as a human, that could never be, could it. He was never supposed to be only human."

"He wasn't just human! He was something else, something…"

"Something entirely new," Garnet whispered.

The two Gems paused. Steven was not a fusion, not predestined or made into existence by choice as a true Gem might be. There, there was something that made Garnet furrow her brow in thought. How could he be asked to live with human choice, as they thrust Rose Quartz's destiny upon him? Impossible. His whole life was impossible, and his death – his death even more so.

"Did you see his Gem?" Pearl asked.

Garnet closed her eyes, but the paths all twisted, future vision blinded by the raw emotion that corralled her mind.

"No, no, I could not. I still can't see it." She sighed. "I can't see anything anymore."

"Garnet…"

But Garnet now was the one to hug Pearl.

"Without him, what future is there?"

The water flowed so slowly that no soul could tell it was once part of a mighty cascade, a single pool without beginning or end. It was nothing now. Once, as the etchings in the rock showed, it had pumped clarity through the chamber of Pearl's room. Now, it only rested, a silent observer of two ancient warriors with no motion except for their souls clasping together and their eyes squeezing out tears.

* * *

The wolves had run at the sight of her coming through the. These creatures, they fascinated her, as most creatures did, but the wolves – oh, their speed, their ferocity, the tenacity according to their hunger, was strange and almost intimidating. No creatures of this planet seemed to come near them. None except the humans wanted to play.

She knelt down and examined their work, hissing in air at the sight. Organic energy and organic wounds were curious cases, and this was some of the greatest that she had seen on a body so small. The hem of her dress stained dark red. The white and pink were already dirtied from the elements, but this was new. It smelled new. Blood was such a lovely color, and it meant such a terrible thing.

Most of the time, she knew, blood did not belong outside of the skin or the body. Nor did the organs. She reached her fingers and dipped them into the mud where the blood pooled. The human whimpered.

"Can you speak?" she mused.

The child raised a shaky hand towards her face. One eye was wide, and the other was barely hanging on to the muscle. The side of his face where the orb hung was scratched with the marks of teeth and claw.

"You're a small one," she said with her softest smile. "Eight cycles, then? Nine?"

This was guesswork for her own sake. The human could not answer.

She stepped back to examine him. One of the wolves had obviously taken part of his face, and the rest of his body's softness was an easy target for their jaws. The muscles of his left arm were torn to show the white humerus beneath. Of course he stomach was torn open, and it was apparent the child's liver had been torn clear out. Splayed intestines draped over the smooth stones on which he lay, turning the brown tunic almost black. Rose Quartz could see the fat of his thighs, and above them, nothing but torn sinew and gristle around the curve of the pelvis.

It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds from the initial screams to her arrival, and the damage was impossibly gruesome. The insides outside, the body put on such a display, was aesthetically masterful. Art in the human world was distorted and misshapen, but here, in the wild, true beauty arose.

It did not come without cost.

"A-An…ya?..."

A human word came forth that she did not know. Spittle and blood dripped out of his mouth as he spoke, before the throat closed up and he began to choke. The Gem stood, concerned but still intrigued with the sight before her. She had never seen this before, not to this extent.

The only thing more startling than the sudden spasms was the stillness that followed. It was an instant transition. She knelt down, extending her hand again to hover over the exposed flesh. How, then was it still warm? The liminal moment made her shudder, and she did not know why.

Humans often took care of their children and held them close. This was not like them, to let one of this size and ability wander so close to the land of predators. She stared in the distance, but there was nothing on the horizon that suggested a village or any kind of human settlement.

The grasslands were overseen by a sea of vast clouds, dark despite the dawn that threatened them. It was a sickly yellow veil that covered the two bodies – one immortal, one inverted – as they waited for time to overtake them.

Rose stepped back. "Why did you say it?" she whispered. "This thought, those thoughts as they passed through your mind and out of your lips, where did they begin and where did they end? Why do you humans think like you do?"

She was so engrossed that she did not notice the human behind her until she heard him cry out. She turned to watch the adult human, his eyes wide and his hair wild, his draped clothing waving in the prairie wind.

The warrior stepped back, her lips curled as gently as the grass stalks under her bared feet, her attention on the two bodies. The man crept towards the body, and she noticed the dark gray of his eyes matched almost exactly the glazed iris of the child.

Seeing her retreat, the man ran and dropped to the child's side, trembling fingers coming towards the corpse's face, running through the mousey curls. His face twisted in despair, turning towards the sky as he choked on tears and blubbering spittle. It was such an ugly, powerful display. Rose put her hands on her chest as she watched. It evoked something deep inside her, something she could not place –

Mourning. This was the purest mourning, the essence of grief in humanity. It was beautiful in the same way that a hurricane was beautiful, or the jaws of the wolves that she had seen crushing the child's bones, or the cries of a woman in labor, or the smell of a scorched field after lightning destroyed its face.

No, that was not right. It was not the equal for the sake of metaphor. It was too pure. She had to inhale air sharply as she studied the man weeping over his child, trying to extract why she was feeling this way. It was not like her.

He heard the breath. He turned towards her, eyes wide, spittle dribbling down his chin like a suckling calf. He spoke angrily in half-stuttered words she did not understand. Human communication was an imprecise and inarticulate art. She did not listen as she watched him rant in her general direction.

"Love, perhaps," she said over the sound of his crescendo. "Love for the dead. A loss of life, and now, a moment of sorrow. Humans live for so little. How great a burden, to carry until the very end."

How long would the boy have had to live, she wondered. Thirty, perhaps even forty years was a good estimate, although she had only seen two or three generations of humans go by. Each cycle of life was carefully tended to, documented in the brain. It was a faulty system, but it worked for the mortals.

She looked towards the child's body one last time. A wasp had flown out of the bush, and sucked at the moisture on the hanging eyeball. Soon, she knew, the wolves would return, and the insects, and the mice, and they would devour the organs, tear apart the skin, burrow inside the empty groin and scavenge everything they could. So many small lives, satisfied by the ending of another – but at the cost of an irreplaceable live itself.

"Is it worth it?" she mused.

Even as she turned, however, Rose shuddered at the man's wailing, his weeping, the sound of his screams that matched in tenor and tremble to the child's own as he had been attacked. It was as if his own life was being torn from his throat. She walked away from them with her hands clasped together, noting the howl of the wolves in the distance.


	4. Falling IV: Falling Apart

Greg grimaced.

"Do we really need all of this?"

"Well, maybe. You never know, right?"

"I don't think we need one of those."

"You'll regret it if you don't."

"What even IS it?"

Rose grabbed the catalog and squinted. She turned it upside down. She tossed it with the rest of them into the ever-growing pile on the pavement. The Gem stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry, resting her hands on her swollen belly.

"I don't knooooow," she whined, lying back on the floor of the van with her legs hanging out over the parking lot of the car wash.

It was slow enough that Greg had been given some time off, and so the two of them had some much needed alone time. They were never really alone, though, and as he leaned with Rose, he couldn't help but stare at her pregnant fullness, the child inside of her, and the reality of fatherhood that still seemed – well, alien.

June was passing them by. Only the traveling tourists passed by their road, driving minivans and pickups with rust on their hubcaps. Heat shimmered from the ocean and coated the town. The thick layers of blue sky were as laden with color as the clear nights were laden with stars. Perhaps, Greg thought, tonight was a night for stargazing. They hadn't done it in a while. He had been working hard, and Rose was equally distracted.

He turned his head.

"How are you feeling?"

Greg could tell that she was uncomfortable, all the time. Her forehead was beaded with sweat. Her clean white dress was more rumpled in places, like an overgrown garden. She was trying to smile, but even that was too much effort until she opened her eyes and looked at him. Then, she beamed.

"I feel fantastic."

"You know that's not true," he said, reaching over to rub over her stomach. "And you know that I really want to make this easier on you, but I don't know how. I haven't exactly done this before! Ever!"

"Neither have I. But I'm still feeling good about this, about everything."

Rose took a deep breath and sighed, stretching out in the shade of the van.

"I'm bringing life to planet Earth. Human life! Isn't that such a wonderful thing? No Gem has ever done this. And this child, they're going to be a human, born right here, and…" She paused. "Well. Maybe not human. Not entirely."

"Yeah, I was wondering – about the Gem thing?"

Greg sat up and crossed his legs, hunched over his wife.

"Humans need two parents to be, y'know…made. You know, like – "

"Greg."

He tried to wipe the blush off his face. "My point is that whoever this kid is, they're gonna be half you and half me, and does that mean they're gonna be half-Gem-powered? What will that even be like?"

Rose reached out and rested a hand on his leg.

"It'll be something brand new."

"You hear that, kiddo?" Greg grinned and leaned down, pressing his lips against Rose's belly. "You're going to be an awesome alien monster!"

Rose laughed with her whole body, then grunted in pain as her body resisted in equal measure. Her husband looked on in concern, but his presence was all that she needed. That and some breathing, to settle herself – and she was able to sit up, ducking her head to make sure she didn't hit her head on the van's roof. Greg slid out as she stood, her hair shimmering in the afternoon sun, curls of perfect pinkness down past her waist. He brushed his own mane past his shoulders, picking stray strands from his black t-shirt. Ocean gusts ruffled the pages of the catalogs on the ground, and he scooped them up, tossing them into the bed of the van.

"But seriously, Rose, I don't know how much of this I can actually afford," he sighed. "A crib, bottles, baby food, diapers, clothing, a carseat, a highchair, a stroller…"

Greg brought out his guitar, pulling it towards him and played the first few notes of the first classic rock song that came over the muted radio. He barely recognized it, but hummed along regardless as Rose watched.

"And names, too! For a girl, definitely Rose." He winked. "Boys, uh, we could go with Greg, but that's pretty bland, so probably something better."

"Steven."

"Steven?"

She winked. "I already asked Garnet."

"I like Garnet but I really wish that y'all wouldn't use your mind powers to spy on our kid in the future," he muttered. "And did she even say why?"

"I like it." Rose rubbed her thumb over her gemstone. "It sounds good on the tongue, like it's sweet. Not like how a rose is sweet, but human sweetness, like a strawberry, earthly sugar! Sugar on strawberries, Steven on Earth."

Greg plinked out a confused chord.

"Kinda reaching there, but I guess I like it."

 _Plunk._

"Steven Universe! It's a rockstar name. Like Tyler, or Perry!" he said, waving the instrument and making whooshing noises with his mouth. Rose smirked.

After Greg got his sandals and Rose got the black camera, they shot the back of the van and began to walk. Over the town, the sight of the temple loomed, its massive arms stretching towards the sky, hunks of marble shaped by might and magic. The two of them walked slowly, hand in hand. The wooden guitar rocked against Greg's shoulder. Rose cradled the camera and the stand against her side.

Greg squeezed her hand as they crossed the road. The only moving car appeared to be the mayor's van, half a mile down the road, making its rounds across town.

"No, but really, are you okay?" he asked.

"Greg, I know this is hard for you. You know I don't want it to be like this."

"It's what you want. What else is there?"

"I wish I could be here for him. I wish he could live with both of us, have both of us there. You know how much I'd love to hold him and hug him, to kiss and to bathe and to feed and to be just like a human parent. But I can't be," Rose said, "for so many reasons."

Greg would have liked to think he knew all the reasons. On second thought, though, he knew that there were things he could never know. And that was okay.

"They're going to think they've lost me," she continued. "In a way, I suppose that's true. But you know that our child, he's going to be part of us. Part of me. I'm not going. Not really. As long as he's here, I'm here. I just wish I could tell him that."

They stepped onto the beach. Rose took out the camera, and Greg watched as she walked towards the water, flipping out the little viewpoint as she approached the tide. Sometimes, at the back of the Big Donut when the town was asleep, he watched her listen to the ocean, giggling at the animals and sounds she had captured in her little world. It was strange, and beautiful, and once again alien to him. But that was Rose, and that was one of the reasons that he loved her so much. There it was, the moment of joy that came when she laughed, when her smile lit up the world more than any terrestrial sun. It was the purest form of humanity, even though she could never understand it. There it was, what he knew he was going to love from his son: the joy of discovery, of revelation, of everything the world had to offer.

As he rested his guitar down on the mat underneath their own private umbrella, he paused. Greg gasped, running towards Rose.

"You can!"

She turned as he skidded to a halt in front of her in the beach. "Can what?"

"You can tell him," he panted. "You can tell him everything!"

He pointed to the camera in her hands. She glanced, confused, but then came the moment he loved, where he swore he could see stars in her eyes.

"For Steven," she whispered.

She pressed he red button and the cassette whirred to a halt.

Autumn was wet this year. Pearl shook off a wet leaf from her foot as she crossed the sidewalk to the car wash. The silver morning brought the question of snow, but the frosts had not yet come to Beach City. Puddles slicked with oil and murky with silt stretched from the sidewalk all the way to the hills along the road.

If it was not for the coldness that bit down on the town, Pearl would not have bothered to wear the sweater that hung loosely around her torso. She felt like someone was staring at her, even though the streets were empty. It felt drained. It felt like a corpse.

She hadn't seen Greg since the funeral. None of the Gems had. She came around to the back of car wash to the van. Pearl wrinkled her nose at the smell that came from the garbage bags that slumped in a line against the wall next to the van, untied and rotting. They were filled with pizza boxes, torn paper, parts to the car wash, and bottles. There were many, many bottles.

"Greg?"

Pearl knocked on the back doors of Greg's home. She could hear music playing on the inside, some modern song, something she didn't recognize. One more knock – still no answer.

Her fingers gripped the freezing metal of the door, and she twisted it open. The smell struck her first, followed by the voice over the radio:

 _Now you have me on the run, the damage is already done, come on, is this what you want, 'cause you're driving me away..._

"Why are you here?"

She didn't like the tone of his voice, or the slurred inflections that came with it. Greg looked awful. His hair was unbrushed and matted against his t-shirt. All he had on was the white shirt and his undershorts; both articles were stained with red pizza sauce and brown alcohol. He stared at the window of the van, eyes half-closed, a throne of brown bottles stacked in front of him. Pillows and blankets were stuffed into the corner. Only the photographs remained pristine, untouched on the little shelf he had made for them.

"Greg," Pearl said.

He turned his head to face her, red eyes glaring at her pale blue. He looked sick, Pearl knew, like he had been awake since Steven –

She cleared her throat. "Greg, we're going through the house. We have…his belongings, games, toys, memorabilia, that sort of thing. Would you like – well, would you like _me_ to drive the van over so we can take them to your garage?"

"Things…"

"Sorry?"

Greg began to crawl towards her, dragging his guitar over his shoulder. Glass clinked against wood as Pearl stepped back, trying to avoid the puddles around them.

"All I have left are _things_ ," he growled. "Got the t-shirts, got the pants, got all that, but there ain't nothing left but that and mem'ries."

"Memories are good, Greg, they – "

He slid out onto the pavement, his legs visibly shaking. The cold wind pressed his stained clothes against his body. A bottle fell out onto the ground and shattered, crystalline chunks around his bare feet. The man didn't seem to notice at all.

"They didn't ev'n find a body, Pearl. No blood, no _Gem_ , nothing. You…can have all the memories you want, but you'll never know. You couldn't have a child if…if your life depended on it."

Greg reached back into the van and pulled out another bottle, hitting it against the van's bed with a slam to pop the cap off; it made Pearl jump. That was part of the smell as he drank, draining it in a matter of seconds, letting this bottle also fall to the pavement. Pearl didn't move an inch.

"Rose…we had Rose, part of her, through Steven. I was fine. I was…humans, Pearl, they can die and we can accept it. She knew it. We were so…ready for him. And then you all wanted to teach him. You wanted to…you wanted Rose back."

Pearl stiffened. "That is NOT true, and you know it."

Greg laughed, but it was not a healthy laugh. It was not a happy laugh. It ended with him seething through his teeth, crying through his dry eyes, callused fingers gripping the neck of his guitar until the instrument and his muscles were shaking.

"You took my child from me," he whispered. "He was happy with me. He could have seen everything that this world had through me, and he could have chosen. But you made him into HER. You gave him – a destiny? You call THAT a destiny? My child is _dead_ , Pearl, and it's all your fault! 's all, you all, you did…you did this to him…"

The man paused to cover his mouth, retching for a moment before containing himself, deep breaths to keep his stomach neutral and the alcohol inside.

"A parent should never have to bury his child," Pearl said quietly.

Chilled wind swept up discarded coupons from the parking lot. The radio turned to soft static. A muted howl caressed the empty streets. Pearl lifted a hand to her eyes and brushed away a single tear.

Greg had his face in his hands. The sobs behind them were horrid, wet and grotesque and only somewhat stifled by his fingers. He removed them only to take the guitar off his body, raising it above his head and throwing it with a grunt against the building. Unspeakable notes cried out, the wood underneath the strings cracking as the instrument fell to the pavement.

"I can't live like this," he spat, the cliché sour on his tongue. "I can't go anywhere without people seeing him. They treat me…they act like I can bring him back. Everyone looks at me like they looked at him. Who was I before Steven? Before Rose? I was nothing, Pearl! And I'm nothing now. He… Steven was everything. I did it all for her, for him, and he d-… He k-…"

More retching interrupted him. This was no use. She didn't even bother to stop her tears now, letting them fall down her face and onto the wool of her sweater. Greg took steps to help his balance, and Pearl winced as the skin of his feet was sliced by the fallen glass. He didn't appear to notice.

Suddenly, he lurched forward, and collapsed onto his knees, his knuckles white as he gripped Pearl's sweater. When he looked up, the desperation in his face made Pearl feel sick herself. There were some broken things that could never be fixed, and the more that Greg said, the more she watched his bottomless mourning, the more she saw the torment that still held him, the image of the child in his heart.

"Another…"

He sniffled, and the smile that appeared was as fragile as the bottles that he had dropped.

"Another son," he whispered. "Pearl, we can have another child. We can save… W-we can make another warrior, another boy, please… Please, Pearl, we can make this right – "

Pearl recoiled, inhaling sharply. Her expression must have said more than she ever could, because Greg immediately fell back, one hand in the puddle, fingernails digging into the mud. The wind blew around his flimsy clothing as he crawled, scraping his skin as he reached out to the Gem.

"Pearl! P-please, Pearl…"

The Gem had already turned away, but she looked back, and a chill ran through her body. In all the world, she had never seen any human this torn asunder. In all her life, she never thought she might be able to understand. But even now, she knew that these words would be her last to this man.

"I am glad he never lived to see you like this."

Pearl walked away. Greg dug his knuckles into the pavement, spittle and tears falling onto the asphalt. There was a trail of blood that led from the glass shards to his feet, their bare soles turned upwards to the sky. He struggled to stay upright for a moment, and then the earth pulled him towards it into the murky puddle. He laid there, his hair trailing in the motor oil, his hands gripping his body as he sobbed. The name, _his_ name – Greg repeated it incessantly, curling up in the parking lot. He was alone.


	5. Falling V: Falling Through

Nobody had the courage to pause the documentary. It was the only light, a microscopic view of a crab-like creature twitching against a grainy piece of paper. The door had been locked. The blinds had been closed. There was nothing left to do but wait.

Connie wanted to at least text her parents, but nobody dared to even move. The loudest students, the drivers, the football players – all of them sat in hushed silence away from the door. The girl glanced up at the loudspeaker in the ceiling, the echo returning to her ears:

 _This is not a drill. Lockdown. I repeat, this is not a drill._

Conclusive, certainly, but the warning gave no actual warning as to what they were going to have to expect. High schools were not armories, and Connie had left her sword in Beach City. She didn't want to think about it – either the sword or the situation. One student coughed. Another sniffled, louder than they had anticipated.

Were those footsteps? The collective students all held their breath as the loudness of an unknown assailant echoed through the hallway. Connie gripped a sharpened pencil, the only thing she had left. But the body passed by. It was haunting, that even in the silence, they could hear the shuffles, the paws on the ground, the…

"Oh, no. No way."

Everyone jumped as Connie stood up, striding towards the door. She knew who it was. She knew who it had to be. Her teacher reached for her, eyes wide, scuffing his corduroys on the carpet as he scrabbled towards her. But it was too late. Connie passed by half-finished lab notes, test tubes with bits of paper stuffed down them, and empty desks and backpacks, undoing the deadbolt and stepping out into the hall. The pencil fell from her hands and clattered to the floor.

"Lion!"

She began to jog towards the beast as he faced her, but something was wrong. She could see it in his face. For such a stoic creature, Lion expressed himself through wrinkles and furrows, through scars and dirt that stained his fur. Even though his pace was uneven and his pelt patchy, he still came right up to Connie's open arms and pressed himself against her chest, nuzzling and growling his greetings.

"How long has it been, Lion?" Connie said, burying her face into his mane. "Too long. That's how long. Way, way too long…"

She stopped, pulled back, and stroked his head, staring at those dark and tired eyes. They reminded her of him. Connie sucked in air sharply, because in the moment they looked at one another, she swore she saw the stars in his eyes.

A siren started to echo down the hallway. Lion nudged her again, more urgently this time. Connie stumbled backwards as he turned, looking at her and growling louder, more implicitly. It had been years since she had ridden on his back, and now that she was grown the mount seemed to be much smaller than she was used to. But this was no time to pick her battles. The beast's mane had already begun to glow.

"I don't know what you're doing here," she shouted as the sirens blared, "but you better know what you're doing!"

She jumped up onto Lion as he started to run down, past the lockers and classrooms. Connie turned her head to see her classmates staring open-mouthed at her, their faces growing distant in the pink glow. One roar was all it took to open the warp at the end of the hallway, sending glass shards beneath Lion's massive paws from the broken windows of the classrooms. They turned to sand underneath his illuminated pads, brushed aside with no injury.

Terrible wrenching feelings started to twist their way through Connie's gut, but she lowered herself and hugged the cat below her, inhaling his scent. In the moment before they broke through, she was surrounded by the scent. She recognized the familiar fragrant hairs, the ones she had often picked off of his t-shirts, the ones she had had to explain to her mother on laundry day, the brilliant coat that lacked its luster from years of mystery. What had the cat been doing? Where had he been?

The fuschia matrix surrounded them as they flew. Pressure started to crush down upon them, and Connie felt her lungs react to the intensity, breathing harder than they had ever had to before. It was like decompression, and she could feel Lion breathing heavily as well as he rushed through. He roared once more, echoing across the wormhole, but this time in pain. Decibels of agony coursed through his ribcage.

The girl held on tightly as pink turned to purple, purple to blue, and blue to black. The patterns disappeared and the sharp geometry turned to oil-slick lines, still rushing past with the same kind of unworldly speed. This was not what she knew. This was not what she thought Lion was capable of. But she had been wrong before.

Sudden whiteness. Sudden darkness. They filled her mind, not her eyes, kaleidoscopic visions of an innumerable number of prisms inside of her skull. Connie cried out in pain, searing hear pouring out of her pores. She felt sweat dripping down her back and her lungs heaving as the two of them broke through into a sudden, uneasy calm.

There was nothing. Then, there was light.

WHO ARE YOU.

Connie opened her eyes. She was floating in space, blinking softly as she readjusted. The air was cool – was it air? – and it washed over her face like a downy wave. She turned, and saw Lion floating close by, and she covered her mouth in horror. Lion was breathing, but bubbles of blood trailed from his mouth, a thickened line of redness against the infinite black.

WHO ARE YOU.

The voice came from everywhere and yet nowhere at once. Connie twisted around, her hair flowing from her. She opened her mouth, but she had no answer. As if a curious eye had appeared out of the blackness, she saw a single glimmer. Again, it was in the distance and right in front of her, a paradoxical superposition, an impossibility made manifest. She reached for it, but another appeared right beside it, and hundreds of others, forming translucent leylines between their stars, constellations of the infinite. Connie had heard, but she had not seen. Steven had told her, but she had not understood.

"I'm inside the Cluster."

Her whisper echoed in her head, but she knew that the Cluster had heard. It reacted, blinking and murmuring amongst its shards. Connie turned from one point to the other. It was a dizzying, impossible amount of matter around her. She started to feel a little sick.

Lion's weak mewl interrupted her, and she floated towards him effortlessly, sinking her hand into his dense mane. She shushed him, stroking his flesh under his fur. That must have been what he was doing, all this time. Somehow, he had to have found his way into the Cluster, figure out how to get himself inside, just like how Steven had done so long ago.

"Why are we here, Lion?" Connie whispered. "I mean, it's beautiful, but why are we here?"

HE IS HERE.

The voice sounded surprised, the ubiquitous echoes descended into whispers as Connie whipped her head around. Lion growled in response, and bared his teeth in exertion. His mane began to glow.

Pink fur brushed apart as Lion's forehead shimmered with light. It looked like it took all of his strength to force the beginning of a bubble out of his flesh. It popped as it came to light, making Connie cover her eyes from the brightness. The beams extending into the darkness dissipated into black, and when Connie opened her eyes, she saw Steven's Gem floating with them.

Lion grunted weakly and curled up, breathing heavily as he floated in rest. He was going to be alright, Connie was pretty sure, but the whole ordeal had taken much out of him. She reached out and took the stone in her hands. She gasped at the warmth, unable to stop the tears from drifting into space. She thought she would never see it again. Its glow radiated and shrank, a steady beating, calm and mesmeric.

"Steven?" she whispered. "Can you hear me?"

HE IS HERE!

From the darkness, Connie screamed as tens of thousands of ghostly hands reached towards her, silver outlines covering the ectoplasmic musculature. They stretched and curled as they came from all around towards Steven's Gem. Connie whipped her head around, and curled up into a fetal ball, gripping the stone close to her heart. She couldn't lose him again, not like this. But while anticipating the grip, nothing came. There was silence. Then there were whispers. She opened her eyes, staring through the blur into the darkness. Now, she knew why Lion had brought her here. But it was too much.

"Can't he just stay with me? Can't he reform?"

NOT LIKE THIS. HE IS NOT WHOLE.

"What do you mean, whole?"

HE CANNOT FORM. HE NEEDS HUMANS TO FORM. HE IS NOT WHOLE.

Connie considered this for a moment, but the rage came before she could ponder.

"What do you know about him?!" she shouted. "You didn't know him! You didn't live with him, not like I did! You didn't see him, you didn't love him, you can't possibly understand. And what if this… What if this is Rose Quartz? What if it's not him, and you bubble her, and Steven's gone forever?"

She broke her sentence, her eyes welling with tears.

"This is all we have left of him. This is all I have."

In the silence that followed, her sobs echoed off of the infinite walls, leaving her and Lion's unconscious body surrounded by the unspoken. Then, the voice returned.

HE IS HERE. YOU MUST BELIEVE.

A pause.

YOU MUST BELIEVE IN HIM.

Connie wiped her eyes in turn, changing the Gem from hand to hand to do so. What did she know? All she had was a terrible feeling, an ache in her soul, and her best and only friend's life warming her fingers. For so many years, he had been trapped, isolated, presume dead, and now he was supposedly here in her hands. Her only chance rested in this. Connie's only chance was uncertain, undefined. Taking a heaving breath, she cried out and released the gem into the blackness. She covered her eyes and let out those terrible, silent sobs, not able to watch the hands come and take her Steven away.

Behind her hands, there was only blackness. There was only silence.

CONNIE.

She opened her eyes, and the darkness before her began to turn. Over and around Connie's head, the blackness bled through with magenta, lines of pink and white and rose traversing the world around her.

CONNIE!

It was a voice of voices, the strength of unity as the shards of the Cluster became imbued with Steven's power. Even through her choking sobs, Connie couldn't help but smile, because she knew that within that voice was his voice, truly his own, speaking to her with all the wonder and love she had known. The murmuring voices came together, watching the new Gem, watching his stories.

HE IS PART OF US. AND THERE IS LOVE, SO MUCH LOVE FOR YOU. THE LOVE, THE LOVE…

"Steven!" Connie laughed, spinning herself around in dizzying flight, the stars of this universe swirling around her.

It was the best of both worlds, the togetherness of the world, just what Steven had believed in. He had had a human's mortal body, but a Gem's eternal soul. Connie wouldn't know what happened to her, but Steven was here, and he was here forever. She wiped her face again, falling over to where Lion slept, opening his eyes only for a moment as she hugged his frame.

"Can he ever come back?"

The echoing murmurs that had begun from the unity died down, the pink horizon fading in thought.

NOT AS HE WAS.

"Can he…can he come back through me?"

PERHAPS. PERHAPS ONE DAY.

That was good enough. Connie watched the lights shine in connection to Steven's Gem, spears and arcs sharing information, sharing this impossible love. He was here now, for as long as he needed, for as long as he wanted to heal. Free of his mother, free to be Steven, he could tell stories and share with all of the Cluster's shards.

He was free.

Connie listened to the infinite voices, hugging Lion as he regained his strength. There were a hundred stories being told at once, an impossible thought process sharing love like the Gems could never understand. Unformed, but whole, the Cluster rang with peals of laughter and whispers of joy.

"I'll wait for you."

Connie closed her eyes and simply listened.

"For as long as it takes, Steven, I'll wait for you."

* * *

It was definitive – car washes should never be this lonely. Greg plucked an errant tune and stared at the roof of his van, still squeezed to one side despite the absent body next to him.

"Jeez," he muttered. "Is this what it's like?"

Not five hours ago, Steven had stepped over the threshold into the house with the Gems, the three women who were going to watch over him, to watch for certain things, parts of the boy that Greg couldn't even begin to understand. He remembered once more the image of Steven as an infant, splashing in the sink, with Greg's soapy hands running over the stone embedded in his skin. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

The adult sat up and leaned against the driver's seat, tapping out some ancient riff on the warped neckboard. The little distractions of music and work only took him so far, and nothing could ever really get Steven out of his head. Wasn't that a good thing for a parent to feel? But love turned to worry, worry turning to fear, fear turning to stress, and so on and so forth until Greg was, once again, lying awake.

" _Ugh_."

On the road, drinks and fans and the travel had been enough to sustain him, to keep reality from forcing itself and its questions inside his skull. Steven complicated the easy escapes. But the responsibility was nothing he couldn't handle. Rose had trusted him enough with that, that was for sure.

Rose had also trusted the Gems, and Greg did as well. The question was whether or not they trusted him back, and if so, how much. Things had been so strange with the child, so much that those odd women could never understand about humans. Greg wasn't about to teach them the specifics, mostly because he hardly knew how to function himself. But Steven was smart, kind, curious, and adventurous. He could hardly ask for more.

Greg put the guitar down and heaved a sigh, patting the space next to him on the floor of the van where Steven cuddled with him on nights like this. The summer made it hard sometimes, but such a little body clinging so tightly to him was easy to deal with. Sleeping was easier with Steven there, and he knew that Steven was going to feel the same way. He wondered what the kid was doing now, if he was still awake, wondering about his dear old –

"Dad?"

Reflexes tugged Greg out of bed and stumbling towards the van's big bay doors. He opened them as quickly as he could, but steadily, out of fear of hitting the poor kid in the face.

Sure enough, the boy was there, barefoot and shaking in the sunless asphalt. His pastel blue pajamas had been splattered with mud from the roadway, scuffed and stained with all the things that the town gave from its roadways, gifts from the sidewalk. Steven sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

"Buddy boy, what're you doing over here?" Greg said, jumping out and scooping the youngster up into his arms. "You should be over at the Gem's house, remember? Did you walk all the way over here?"

Steven whimpered and hugged Greg around the neck. The man could feel his child's hot tears drip through his t-shirt.

"I couldn't sleep," he said.

He smelled like motor oil, dirt, and discarded cigarettes. Greg patted the boy on the back as he made his way into the car wash, flipping the lights on as they passed by. The internal area flickered to life, pale florescents washing over both of them.

"C'mon, Stevie. Let's get you cleaned up," Greg said.

"M'kay."

There were things that Greg had not yet cleared away from their time living together, the domestic side of the car wash that customers never saw. Yellowtail had scavenged an old bathtub from some other boater, and scoured it out for Greg to use. It was too small for any adult, but just the right size for a child like Steven. Greg pulled down the manual hose from the wall and turned it on to a warmer setting as Steven pulled his pajamas off, setting his clothing down in a rumpled pile on the ground. They needed a wash now anyway.

Steven knelt, and leaned on the edge of the tub and held the hose when Greg handed it to him. The water started to pool around his knees, and Greg smiled as the boy shivered, then relaxed as the warmth began to surround him.

"I'll get the soap and stuff, alright?"

Next to the car wax and spare soaps in the main office, Greg brought out a washcloth, a fluffy pink towel, and a bar of soap in a plastic bag. It was going to be easier now, he thought, doing laundry with the actual machines on-location at the house. Who was going to take care of that? Pearl, probably. Greg smirked as he came back, turning off the hose as Steven sat back in the tub.

Greg let the soap fall into the tub as Steven sat there, quietly letting his father do his due diligence with the washcloth. He soaked it before bringing it to the kid's face, wiping the snot and the tearstains, the dirt and the sand that had blown over him and stuck to his skin. Steven took the soap in his little hands and rubbed over his legs and ankles absent-mindedly as his father worked on his cheeks.

There was a kind of intense concentration as Steven slid back once Greg was done, letting his feet come out of the water. Steven was usually self-reliant during baths, but both of them were exhausted, and Greg was the one who had to pick up the slack. It didn't matter, though; he would have been able to no matter what. Getting the highway grime off of the boy's feet, Greg was in autopilot mode, a gentle smile and a hummed melody on his lips. Parenthood had given him that gift, and it made both of them grin as they made eye contact. Steven curled his toes and giggled when the washcloth tickled his soles.

Soon enough, Steven was as clean as he needed to be, and no longer smelled like he had walked across the road and the beach. Greg pulled the plug, and the tub drained straight into the grate in the car wash's floor. Steven stood up and lifted his arms, and his dad grabbed the towel and scooped him up with a laugh.

He carried the boy back to the van, scrubbing him dry. Steven held out his limbs obediently, used to this routine.

"Do the Gems know you're here?" Greg asked. He already knew the answer.

Steven's smile faltered.

"N-no, they're in their own rooms," he said, glancing down and pulling the towel around his naked body.

It was just like what Greg had initially been worried about, but it was inevitable. If only it hadn't ended with Steven walking across the roadway to get to them. Could the crosswalk even be seen without a flashlight? Had Steven gotten lost in the dark?

But all that didn't matter. He was here now. Greg reached into the back and got out a spare t-shirt and some underwear for his son.

"Steven, they don't really know how to take care of you in the same way that I do. But that's because they're not human, you know that," he sighed. "Gems don't have to raise humans. They just sorta exist. It'll take a bit of time for them to learn. But they'll learn and teach you all about Gem things. Just… It'll take time. Everything takes time."

Steven nodded, but he still looked disappointed. Greg rubbed the boy's shoulders under the towel, trying to find the words to comfort him.

"You can stay with me tonight, and we'll go back in the morning, okay, Steven?" Greg said. "We'll get breakfast together, and we'll read a story together before bed, every night."

"Every night?"

"Every night."

Steven smiled and nodded, still dubious, certainly, but much less agonized over it than he had been before. He leaned over and hugged Greg tightly, breathing in the familiar scent of the man and the van.

Greg stroked the boy's hair, fingers against his scalp. "But you gotta get something on, alright? Not hot enough in the buff tonight," he chuckled.

The child pulled on the clothes that Greg had set out, putting the towel out over the doorway to dry. He closed the door and came back to lit with his dad underneath the sheet. As soon as both of them had lain down, Steven reached over and snuggled over Greg's chest, holding on tightly. His eyes closed, but Greg didn't expect him to pass out so quickly. Within two minutes, the child's breathing had slowed, and he had his mouth open, body relaxed as he slumbered.

Greg reached up and brushed a tear from his eye. Was it just a cheesy parent moment? Steven's youth, his purity, it always amazed him day by day how lucky he was. He wondered where he would be without the child in his life, but there was nothing now except for a Steven-shaped hole in his heart.

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Steven," he murmured.

The child smiled in his sleep. Greg closed his eyes and put his head against the pillow. In a van behind the car wash, the two slept in safety, where nothing could ever hurt them again. A blanket of stars covered Beach City and rocked it to sleep. All was calm.


End file.
